


i wouldn't leave you (if you'd let me)

by shineyma



Series: did i fall asleep [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, F/M, Post-Season/Series 02, Ward x Simmons Summer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-07
Updated: 2015-08-07
Packaged: 2018-04-13 09:48:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4517259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a chilly night in Madrid, and Jemma is stargazing.</p><p>[For the <b>Stars</b> theme at Ward x Simmons Summer.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	i wouldn't leave you (if you'd let me)

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, this fic takes place in the same 'verse as chapters 59 (["Did I fall asleep?"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3595836/chapters/9464937)) and 64 (["You can't hide the truth forever, you know"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3595836/chapters/9465039)) of my second prompt collection, as well as, obviously, the first fic in this series.
> 
> I know I'm kind of jumping around this series, chronologically speaking, and don't worry! I absolutely intend to fill in those blanks. This is just the first of my several in-progress fics for this series that I happened to finish.
> 
> Title is from Halsey's _Trouble (Stripped)_. Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review!

Their hotel room has a balcony, a fairly large square of concrete with a lovely view of the city, and that’s where Jemma whiles away her hours.

She was afraid of heights, once. It seems almost foolish now—there are so many other, worse things to fear—but bizarrely, she finds she misses the fright that used to grip her whenever she so much as glanced out the Bus’ windows. Looking out from the sixteenth story and feeling nothing but appreciation for the lights of the city, she feels oddly bereft.

She can’t explain it—her lack of fear at home, where their bedroom windows offer a view from even higher up, doesn’t bother her at all—and she doesn’t like it.

So she aims her gaze at the stars instead.

They’re difficult to see, here—the city’s light pollution turns them into mere pinpricks—but they’re still lovely.

Her guard is less than moved.

“You can see the stars anywhere,” Ortilla says, tone somewhere between derisive and coaxing. “Wouldn’t you rather come inside? It’s so cold out here.”

“I have a blanket,” Jemma points out, wrapping it more firmly around herself. “I’m fine.” She pauses. “You can go in, if you like.”

He gives her a decidedly unimpressed look. “No.”

“I’m hardly about to leap off the edge of the balcony,” she says. “If I want to leave, I have to pass through the room, so—”

“No,” he repeats.

She sighs, slumping back in her seat. It’s absurd that she’s being guarded on a secure balcony; the only possible danger this high is a sniper, and should one have her in his sights, a guard will hardly do her any good.

There was a time Ortilla would have gladly left her to her thoughts. Of course, that was also the time in which Grant would leave her behind when he had work to do overseas, rather than dragging her along.

For all that she came back willingly, the fact that she tried to leave him in the first place has left Grant with a few trust issues. Her guard presence has increased dramatically; she’s hardly ever alone, these days. Grant himself is far more attentive—more demanding, less likely to allow her to wander away from him as her whims dictate. They visited his base in Lisbon yesterday, and when she attempted to leave the meeting he was holding with the base commander in favor of investigating the labs, his reaction was enough to have the rest of the room diving for cover.

It’s her own doing, really—what else was she expecting, when she decided to leave?—but it’s still beginning to grate.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she says, plucking at a stray thread on the blanket. “I’m not going to leave again.”

“Take it up with the boss,” Ortilla advises, unsympathetic—though his voice is kinder than it was a moment ago. “For now, my orders are really straight-forward, and I’m following them to the letter.”

She can hardly hold his obedience against him—one of Grant’s favorites he may be, but that only means it takes more to displease Grant, not that the consequences are any less severe—and so she merely sighs again.

“Fine,” she says, and makes herself more comfortable on the lounge chair. “But I’m not going inside anytime soon.”

He groans, clearly miserable. “You’re a cruel woman, doc.”

\---

Jemma doesn’t truly intend to spend hours staring at the stars, yet somehow, that’s exactly what happens. Her tablet—full of work she could be doing—remains untouched on the table next to her as she watches the sky, mind wandering.

It’s not until Hicks arrives to take over for Ortilla that she realizes just how _long_ she’s been lost in her thoughts, and Ortilla’s occasional complaints about the cold become more understandable. She feels a bit guilty, at that; he’s wearing a jacket, but it’s nowhere near as warm as it could be, for this sort of weather.

Hicks, on the other hand, has obviously been warned, as he arrives wearing a thick coat and a fairly ridiculous hat.

“Really, man?” Ortilla asks, staring in disbelief at the bright purple pom-pom adorning said hat.

“Laugh if you want,” Hicks says. “But, unlike you, I’m not gonna spend the next six hours freezing my—” He darts a glance at Jemma. “—toes off.”

Ortilla scowls, apparently of the opinion that Hicks deserves to suffer as he did. “You look stupid.”

“Poor guy,” Hicks muses, as Ortilla flees back inside. “Usually his insults are much better than that. He must really be freezing.”

“I told him he could go inside,” Jemma says.

“Uh huh,” Hicks says. “Of course you did.” He leans against the back of her chair, looking up. “So, we’re stargazing, huh?”

“So it seems,” she says, rubbing at her neck. “It’s a lovely night.”

“Sure,” he agrees. “Little cold, though. You warm enough?”

Actually, now that he mentions it, she is feeling a touch chilled. Her blanket is lovely and thick, but it’s still only a blanket, and it only covers so much. Her face, when she presses her hands to it, is ice cold.

Still, she’s in no hurry to go back into the hotel room.

“Yes,” she says, tucking her hands back inside the blanket. “I’m fine.”

“You sure?” he asks. “You don’t wanna go inside, get a nice warm drink?”

“No, thank you,” she says.

“Ah, well,” he sighs. “It was worth a shot.”

He subsides into silence, and Jemma returns her gaze to the sky. It truly is lovely. It’s hard to believe there’s so much danger lurking around those distant suns, that so much pain and unhappiness has come from such a pretty sight.

But then, the most beautiful things are often the most dangerous.

She doesn’t know when her thinking turns to dozing, but she’s definitely more than half-way to sleep when the lounge chair shifts under her as someone sits on the end of it. A familiar hand circles her ankle, and she blinks heavy eyes open to smile at Grant.

“You’re back,” she says.

“You’re cold,” he says, frowning. “Why haven’t you gone inside?”

“I was—”

“Stargazing,” he interrupts. “Yeah, I’ve heard. And we both know that’s not why you’re out here.” His hand tightens around her ankle. “The truth, Jemma.”

This, too, has changed: he doesn’t let her harmless evasions pass any longer. The last time he let her fob him off with a tiny lie, she was planning to run, and that has clearly left its scars.

“It’s nothing, really,” she says. He quirks an unimpressed eyebrow at her, and before she can stop herself, she grimaces. “The walls were starting to close in on me, that’s all.”

Her fear of heights has faded, but her claustrophobia lingers, and it cares nothing for how spacious their suite is—how many doors and windows it offers. She felt trapped, earlier, felt the panicked fluttering beginning in her lungs, and fled to the balcony to shelter beneath the wide, open sky.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Grant says. He releases her ankle to cup her cheek, and the warmth of his hand on her chilled skin sends a shiver through her. “Are you feeling better now?”

It’s funny, but there are times that she honestly forgets that Grant is the cause of her claustrophobia—that he dropped her into the ocean in a tiny metal storage pod and scarred her for life. It’s not so in this moment, however; though his face is set in solicitous concern, there’s enough light on the balcony that she can see the guilt he refuses to acknowledge darkening his eyes.

Until his dying day, he will insist that he made the only possible choice, and perhaps he truly did. But there’s a measure of denial behind his arguments, an extra ferocity, when she bothers to pursue the subject, that tells her he does regret it.

It’s enough for her.

“Much,” she says honestly, laying her hand over his. “Did your business go well?”

He smiles, just a little, amused as always by her own denial, couching his work in such innocuous words. She knows perfectly well what he was up to tonight, and the guilt of it—of standing back and letting it happen—gnaws at her insides. But—

Well. She’s made her choice, hasn’t she.

“Yeah,” he says. “All taken care of.” His hand falls away from her face, and hers falls with it. “Now, why don’t you come inside with me, get warmed up?”

Hicks, presumably reading the same innuendo in the words that Jemma does, makes himself scarce at once, and she smiles, consciously setting aside her solemn mood.

“You’ve scared away my guard,” she teases. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

Grant grins and, in one smooth motion, tugs her into his lap.

“I’ll get you another one,” he promises, and kisses her.

As cold as she is, his mouth is nearly _too_ warm against hers, and her skin prickles as an almost feverish heat falls over her. Her blanket is trapped between them, twisted up from her swift relocation, and she shoves at it distractedly with one hand as she buries the other in his hair.

He breaks the kiss with a low chuckle.

“Problem?” he asks.

“Only if you intend to get me naked,” she says, studying the blanket with some dismay. She has no idea how it got so tangled around her legs.

“Not out here, I don’t,” he says, and then—by some miracle of specialist coordination—manages to stand out from under her, somehow leaving her on the chair instead of dumping her to the ground.

Jemma is puzzled by the physics of the maneuver, but before she can give them any thought, he’s tugging her to her feet and kissing her again, and she forgets everything else in favor of returning it. She winds her arms around his neck as his hand slides down her back, and she hardly notices when the blanket falls away—except to appreciate that, when he lifts her off her feet, its absence makes it possible to wrap her legs around his waist.

She’s almost dizzy with desire—with his firm grip on her thighs and his teeth nipping at her bottom lip and his _warmth_ , bleeding through her clothes to set her chilled skin aflame—and being carried through their suite doesn’t help. By the time he drops her onto the bed, she’s not entirely certain which way is up.

Not that she cares.

“Now,” Grant says, stripping off his shirt. “Let’s see if I can’t warm you up.”

\---

He does, of course, and very well.

It’s nearly dawn by the time they’re finished, soft blue light sneaking around the edges of the curtains as she lies curled against his side. His heartbeat is still slightly elevated beneath her ear, but his fingers are languid as they move through her hair.

The sudden ring of the bedside phone shatters the peaceful silence, and Jemma jolts.

“Duty calls,” Grant sighs, and reaches for the phone. “Yeah?”

Even as close as she is to him, she can’t hear what the caller says; whatever it is makes Grant’s other hand still in her hair.

“Is that so?” he asks, voice dangerously mild. “When?” The answer, whatever it may be, makes him curse, and he eases her off of him in order to sit up. “And _why_ am I only hearing this now?”

Jemma sits up slowly, stomach tight with dread at the promised violence in his tone.

But Grant must find the reason for the delay acceptable; he sighs and scrubs a hand through his hair, and when he speaks again his voice is much more even.

“Fine. Any casualties?” he asks. The answer makes him sigh. “Okay. Yeah.” He pauses, then glances at her. “Actually, that’s not a bad idea.” He nods to himself. “We’ll take an extra week. Call me if anything—yeah. And get Markham on that.”

With that, he hangs up, and she eyes him a touch warily.

“Is everything all right?” she asks, and finds herself rolled under him in answer.

Heat winds lazily through her veins as he settles over her. Her body is apparently unconcerned by how close the pleasant ache between her thighs is to becoming an uncomfortable soreness, and she idly wonders how many condoms they have left.

(Not many, is her guess.)

“Fine,” he says. “That was Evie.” He’s balancing half of his weight on one elbow, so as to avoid crushing her; his free hand comes up to trace the contours of her face. “We’re extending our trip.”

“For another week,” she surmises. “Why?”

The corner of his mouth ticks up in a little smirk. “I don’t think you wanna know.”

HYDRA business, then. She lets it go.

“Are we staying here?” she asks.

“Nah,” he says. “I’m bored with Madrid—and hey, all my _business_ is taken care of. Why don’t you pick?”

She stares up at him, wondering if she’s imagining the weight behind his gaze. This feels like a test, though she couldn’t say why.

“Isn’t there anywhere you need to be?” she asks.

“Nope,” he says, and dips his head to kiss her—slow and sweet. “My time is yours, baby.”

For some reason, the endearment sits uncomfortably on her chest. She looks away.

He didn’t used to call her baby. It was always _sweetheart_ , on the Bus—though only quietly, in private moments, when he was certain none of the others would overhear. He was shy, that Grant; even though the whole team knew they were together, he was careful to remain professionally distant whenever they were around.

The thought makes her heart ache.

She loves Grant, truly and deeply, for the man he really is—violence and malice and all. Still, there are times she misses the lie she fell in love with in the first place.

“Hey,” he says, drawing her eyes back to his. His brow is furrowed as he smooths his fingers over her cheek. “Where’d you go?”

She can’t tell him what she’s thinking. It would anger him to be compared to that man—and, though he’d never admit it, hurt him, as well.

She doesn’t know why she’s thinking of the lie, anyway, not now, during a happy moment like this.

“Nowhere,” she says, rubbing her hands along his sides. “I was only thinking—I’ve always wanted to see Zürich.”

He must know it’s an evasion—he always knows—but he doesn’t comment, merely smiles and kisses her once more.

“Zürich it is.”


End file.
